These facts I gleaned from a grocer who lived near by, and who was acquainted with all the parties. My mind was so disturbed by the distressing event, I found it impossible to sleep for hours after I reached my room. I started in to recite a book of Paradise Lost, but it was no go. I had Michael assaulting Satan with a shoemaker’s awl instead of with his sword of celestial temper. I then endeavored to run over an act in Shakespeare, but met with no better success. I had Othello blowing his head off with a shot-gun, instead of stabbing himself with a knife. Still, the terrible combination of circumstances culminating in the death of the poor cobbler crowded upon me in a saddening train, and much-needed rest came not to my relief until the following lines were composed and set to music:— “Oh, the sunshine of his life Had become a tailor’s wife, Which was more than selfish heart could bear; So he got his gun in haste, In his mouth the muzzle placed, Turned his eyes aloft as if in prayer; On the trigger set his toes— As the illustration shows— Then up to the ceiling went his hair! [Illustration] [Illustration] THE LAST OF HIS RACE. While passing through the market this morning, I saw the old turkey that had escaped the ravages of Christmas. He is said to be the sole remnant of the turkey tribe—living or dead—at present to be found. Though the door of his coop was open he seemed to have no desire to escape. Evidently, like Byron’s “Prisoner of Chillon,” he has been so long an inmate he has become attached to it, and would rather remain there than take his chances in the busy world outside. He stood most of the time in the centre of the coop in a brown study. Once, while I was looking at him, he attempted to expand the dilapidated substitute for a tail and assume the dignity and strut of other days. The effort was too much for him, and he settled down again into a dreamy, somnolent state, from which the crowing of a large Brahma even failed to arouse him. The poor fellow will doubtless fall a victim to man’s rapacity on New Year, for I noticed a fleshy old epicure regarding him with hungry sinister looks; nay, more, setting a price upon his head. Passing again through the market this afternoon, I noticed the coop was empty, the “Prisoner of Chillon” was missing. Who had purchased him? or what had become of him? were questions which, however pertinent they might be, I felt I had no right to ask, and I didn’t. But the finger of suspicion points directly at the mouth of that venerable justice who was setting a price upon its head. JIM DUDLEY’S RACE. Now that I am rid of my wild-cat mining stock, my aching teeth and inverted toenails, “Jim Dudley” turns up again with his stories and slang.